Things We Used To Love
by Clover80
Summary: A series of one shots about things tributes used to love but came to hate. Finnick loved nets, Beetee loved electricity, Katniss loved the woods...


Tie the knots, over, under, around, pull, do it again, unravel everything. Start over. Tie the knots, over, under, around, pull, do it again, unravel everything. Start over…but never finish the net.

When Finnick was a boy he loved nets. He could weave a net out of anything, rope, leaves, grass, seaweed; it calmed him and kept him busy. Nets meant safety-you could catch things in nets like food or your enemies and stay alive. Nets were for holding things. At home in District 4 nets cradled your body as you slept in a hammock and nets held babies close to their mother's chest as they walked around the District. Nets were for binding, or keeping things close. When people got married in District 4 the wedding guests threw a net over the new couple after they kissed to symbolize how they would be bound together for life. Nets symbolized the best parts of life in the fishing district.

When he was 14 the nets turned on Finnick. Nets were still for trapping only he had to use them to trap other tributes so he could skewer them with his trident and get out of the arena alive. Nets were still for holding things-the Capitol used a net made of threats and blackmail to hold Finnick in their grasp, to keep him close. He was their golden boy, always on the cover of their magazines, always on the arm of a wealthy Capitol citizen and threats against his loved ones wove an invisible web that kept him there. The Capitol liked to think that they were like the mother holding her baby close to herself so that it always felt safe and loved. To Finnick the net they held him with seemed like something thrown over a hunter's trap, keeping a tiger down in a pit, keeping him from leaping to freedom and killing whoever trapped him in the first place.

Even the nets used to bind lovers getting married in District 4 turned on Finnick. His love for a girl bound her to a life of madness. His love allowed the Capitol to trap her, haul her into the Games and hold her in their nets forever; because once you're a Victor the Capitol's hold on you is eternal. Her mind was forever tied to the arena like fishing net tangled around the pilings of a pier; the past and present twisted around themselves in her head making it hard to separate one from the other. Sometimes she was alive and happy and laughing and vibrant and other times she was lost and silent and forever swimming while everyone around her drowned. Sometimes she was screaming as she watched her District partner's head tipping just a little too far to the left than was natural and the whole world was covered in red. The memories were a part of her, woven into the fabric of her being and held fast to her by a net of Capitol created horror and insanity that was inescapable. The Capitol had netted Finnick who was bound to Annie who was trapped in a web of madness who in turn left Finnick tangled up in his own madness and literally weaving knots used to make nets to calm himself when the Capitol had once again taken Annie. President Snow trapped her in his nets after the rebellion and the destruction of the Quarter Quell arena. At least that's how he thought of it. A never ending loop of entangled thoughts and musings ran through his head just like the tangled, woven threads of a net. That was why, as he waited for Annie to be rescued, the band he wore on his arm in the bowels of District 13 said "Mentally Disoriented." His thoughts all ran together and became intertwined… Finnick hated nets.

Several months later, as his blood ran into a Capitol sewer one of his last thoughts was "If only I had had a net I could have caught the mutts before they caught me, trapped them, ensnared them, stopped them before they got to me." Later Annie thought the same thing. If only he had had a net… But Annie was still bound to him forever through the little boy that shared Finnick's name and looked up at her with Finnick's green eyes from the net that strapped him to her chest; the net that bound a baby to his mother so that he could be close to her even when her hands were occupied. A net meant to keep him feeling safe and loved. His gaze threw a net over her heart the minute he was born tying her life to his forever. Little Finnick loved nets…


End file.
